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pE-ORGAMZATIOI^ OF FLORIDA. 



A N AD DRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE A MEETING OF THE 



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AT KING'S FEEEY, ON ST. MAEY'S EIVER, 



OlSr SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1865, 



MAJOR ALFRED F. SEARS, U.S.V. 



BOSTOI^ : 
I PRESS () CEO. C. RAND & AVERY, 3 CORNHILL. 

I " 18 6 5. 



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RE-OPtGAMZAxfeFoTFlMroi: 




AN AD DRESS 



DKLIVERED BEFORE A MEETING OF THE 



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AT KING'S FEEEY, ON ST. MAEY'S EIVEE, 



OlSr SATURDAY, JULY 22, 18 



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MAJOR ALFRED F. SEARS, U.S.V. 



BOSTON: 

PRESS OF GEO. C. RAND & AVERY, 3 CORJSfHILL. 

18 6 5. 






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ADDRESS. 



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My Fellow-Citizens, old friends of Nassau County, — I 
greet you. 

After a long separation, more crowded with great events 
than any four years you and I have ever known, or ever will 
know, we come together again, in our old relation, I hope, 
friends and brethren. 

During the last three years, the orders of the Secretary of 
War have kept me within sight of your homes. I have looked 
this way across the river that divided us ; have seen the light 
of the picket-fire in the winter night, and the gleam of the 
sentry's polished bayonet in the sunshine. I have looked 
through my field-glass at the pine-trees on this side, imagining 
what limb would be most convenient to hang to if I should 
be caught by your fellows ; and I think I discovered the very 
tree that seemed most to invite such a decoration. 

Doubtless some men believed that I would gladly have come 
over by stealth, with soldiers, to massacre your guards, or take 
them captive to Fort Clinch. 

But I think I may safely say that to-day there is no man 
living within fifty miles of my post, in Georgia or Florida, 
that believes any thing of the kind. 

I think that all of you who listen to me now, knowing that 
during these three years I have never refused to extend my 
hand to help the suffering people of this county when they 
were within reach, whether as prisoners, or hostile men covered 
by a flag of truce, or as deserters or refugees, — in whatever 
condition or relation I have met them, — will give credit to 
what I say, when I declare, that, in all these dreadful years, 
there has been no time when I would not come to you in love, 



with open arms and an open heart, to interpret to you the 
benevolent wishes of the Government, rather than to do you 
harm. 

It was the State of my adoption. Had I not alv/ays friends 
in this county ? Did I forget that we were men of the same 
blood, — Americans ? 

Could I forget that in times past we had striven together 
to advance the interests of the State and the Nation, — the 
great United States ? "Was it possible for me to feel in my 
soul, knowing you as I do, that the good, quiet farmers of 
Nassau County were traitors ? 

I need not reply to these questions. The heart of every 
man of you finds the answer in his own bosom. 

To-day, we come together understanding each other. On 
my part, I understand that wicked men, willing to be traitors, 
— for I shall not compromise with names before you, — have 
been misleading the people for their own selfish purposes. I 
understand that misguided, mistaken men have given a too- 
willing compliance to these leaders ; that young men, full of 
the fire of their young blood, — high-strung, generous, heroic, 
misled b}^ demagogues, — believed their State was to be op- 
pressed by Northern fanatics, and, with the same zeal that will 
hereafter lead them in the right path, plunged into the contest 
Avith the purest motives, and fought gallantly what they truly 
believed to be the enemies of their country. And I under- 
stand, too, that many staid citizens have been forced to observe 
the forms of indorsing the despotism of the Richmond Govern- 
ment while their hearts were in the glorious old Union. 

Now this is a meeting of the loyal citizens of the county ; 
that is to say, it is a meeting of all the classes I have named, 
except the first, which I call traitors and demagogues. 

Thus I have shown you how I understand you. Now I shall 
tell you how I want to be understood to-day. And, if any man 
present does not choose to so understand me, it is because he 
does not know me, or because he does not wish to know the 
truth. In either event I shall feel as Pat did towards the 
mule that kicked him behind, — I shall impute the fact to the 
" ignorance of the baste." 

Of myself I should not say any thing, if it were not that I 



wisli you to know just how much consolation my words may 
properly be to you, and how much instruction they contain of 
value for your future conduct. 

I tell you, then, to begin with, I came to you wholly out of 
my personal regard for you as old friends whose hospitalities 
I have shared in the times that have gone by ; as my fellow- 
citizens with whom I have formerly voted, to whom I have 
spoken in these pine-woods in behalf of what I believed to be 
our true public policy. 

I do not come to make favor with you in order that I may 
some day get office at your hands. You very well know that 
you have before offered me that, but could not prevail on me 
to accept a nomination. No, my friends : I am devoted to a 
scientific profession, from which I cannot be tempted to po- 
litical position. 

You have known me to take the stump among you as the 
antagonist of what I thought a great monopoly, and when I 
was opposing the strongest political influences in the State, in 
the face of my own ruin, because I believed I was right, and 
might thereby serve my fellow-citizens. 

So, to-day, I come in the same spirit. I come not to lecture 
as an oracle of wisdom ; not even as an officer of the United- 
States army. I come simply as a brother among men, as your 
fellow-citizen. I come to talk with you rather than to you. 

And in any information I shall profess to impart to you con- 
cerning the temper of the North, or the policy of the United- 
States Government, you will understand me as speaking from 
official documents, published in the newspapers for our guid- 
ance, and from speeches and editorials made all over the North, 
illustrating the hearts of the people. 

When it is not so, I shall tell you, that you may be honestly 
advised as to your condition and prospects. 

Now you understand me, and I understand you. I take it 
that you are here to listen in candor and forbearance, just as I 
am here to speak in candor and love ; and, if I say some- 
thing occasionally to offend some of you, believe me, I do not 
so speak with the intent to offend. 

If I offend, it will be because, in my earnestness to do my 



6 

duty and to serve my fellow-citizens, I forget all personal feel- 
ings, and repudiate old party predilections. 

Be forbearing, then, because I stand in the presence of 
God and my own conscience, and I intend to speak the truth 
though the heavens fall. 

And first, concerning the War, it is necessary only to say 
so much as shall lead us to the results we hope to reach by 
this gathering. 

No matter what may have been your past expressions, every 
orderly citizen rejoices to-day in the. triumph of the United 
States over the wicked combination to take its life. 

No good man rejoices or believes in any such thing as a 
conquest of the South by the North ; of pro-slavery men by 
abolitionists ; of democrats by republicans. 

This proposition is very evident, because there have been 
loyal Southern States, and many loyal men in all the rebellious 
States (a loyal union league even in Charleston) ; and there 
have been traitors in the North : so then, we shall not say the 
North has whipped the South. 

Nor, again, shall we cry out that abolitionists have van- 
quished pro-slavery men ; because it so happens that many 
loyal men have come to the help of the Government, who have 
themselves been slaveholders, and have never ceased to plead 
and preach for slavery. Witness, for instance, our noble 
President, a slaveholder of Tennessee ; and bear in mind the 
fact that the most prominent and bitter abolitionists of the 
country have continually opposed the Governuient through- 
out the war. 

But again : I said that in this war we shall not permit re- 
publicans to claim a victory over the democrats. 

Why, behold the strong men of the democratic party, who 
ranged themselves with the Government when the first matri- 
cidal shot was hurled against Sumter ! — Stanton, Dix, But- 
ler, Sickles, Dickinson ; — but where, if I begin the list, shall 
I leave oiF? 

Now, then, you see that my proposition is correct ; and no 
man has occasion to feel chagrined simply because he is a 
Southerner, a democrat, or pro-slavery. 



And yet somebody lias been whipped. Who is it ? and how 
was it done ? 

These questions are of great importance to us at this time : 
let us not fear to look them boldly in the face ; for we require 
correct answers to them to assist us in the re-organization of 
the State. I say we shall be forced to re-organize in accord- 
ance with these answers, if we can find correct ones. 

It may be disagreeable to some here to look at the truth 
unless it be a little gilded. 

My friends, I desire to make every thing as pleasant as I 
can ; but I am too far from a political dauber, and there is no 
gold-leaf in my book. I must therefore present you with the 
truth, naked as I find it. 

When, therefore, I am asked, Who has been whipped? and 
how was it done? I answer, first, in a general way: The 
spirit of the nineteenth century has met in conflict the demons 
of barbarism, and only the constant result of nature has oc- 
curred. This time, be assured, the weapons tvill not be laid 
aside till those barbarous ideas are driven from the land. 

The irresistible tide of Christian progress hath surged 
against the Kock of Error, rooted it from its ancient hold, 
overturned and rolled it away, and now with its divine flood 
fills the place once occupied with that gloomy boulder, — the 
roost of the buzzard, the hiding-place of kidnappers and pirates. 

This statement may be too general, and there are possibly 
points in it not exactly understood. 

To narrow it down a little, and to make it plain to every- 
body, when you ask me who has been whipped, and how it 
was done, I say more definitely what 1 hope we shall all agree 
to, that the United-States Government, your government 
and mine, — so that every loyal man has a share in the fact, 
— our Government, has had a war with traitors, and has 
given them damnation. 

Now, if this plain talk hurts any man here who pretends to 
be loyal, I have only to say that he reminds me of a Jew, pro- 
fessing Christianity, who begged men not to speak harshly of 
Judas Iscariot because he was a countryman of his. 

But a great many have sufiered who were innocent of 
treason. Ah, yes! that's true. Is it the first time since 



8 

Adam was born, that virtuous men have been hurt by the dis- 
pensation of God's providence ? Was Abel an offender against 
God? 

And after all, my friends, how often will it not appear that 
if the innocent were a little more careful, he w^ould escape in- 
jury ! he was possibly Avhere he ought not to be, or per- 
chance he was not where he ought to have been. 

I am sometimes reminded, when I hear these accusations, of 
a similar complaint before a country justice in New Jersey :■ — 

" May it plase your honor," says Pat, " that divil of a bad 
craythur, Mrs. Finnegan, t'rowed a shtone into me front windy 
last night, and hit me darter Bridget on her buzzum, saving 
your honor's prisince, all along of a spite she had agin her, 
yer honor." 

"Did it hurt Bridget much?'' says the justice. "Well, 
plase yer honor," says Pat, " it niver hurt Bridget a bit, 
thanks be to God, yer honor ; but it broke three fingers on 
the hand of the young man that's paying his attintions to her, 
yer honor." 

So when I hear some men complain of being hurt by this 
War, although innocent of antagonism against the United- 
States Government, I cannot help saying to myself, that if 
Bridget had been seated on one side of the fire-place, and 
her sweetheart on the other, the young man's fingers would 
not have been broken ; though in all this I reflect in no man- 
ner on the young man, but can only feel that his human na- 
ture made him a little too close to Bridget when Mrs. Finne- 
gan's spiteful stone came in at the window. 

When I say that the United-States Government has thrashed 
traitors, I refer to that title all men who were active in push- 
ing forward the scheme for secession, provided those men 
possessed sufficient intelligence to comprehend what they 
were doing, and were so acting for the wicked purpose of de- 
frauding the majority of the nation of their constitutional 
right to elect a President. 

You all remember what miserable pretexts were made for 
raising the hand of Florida against her best friend. You 
elected a man from this county pledged to secession. Some 
of you voted intelligently and patriotically : you knew that 



9 

the United-States Government had bought this territory and 
paid money for it, and it belonged by a fee-simple title to that 
government ; you felt gratitude for the protection stretched 
over you in the Indian wars ; you thought on the immense 
sums of money disbursed among your citizens to pay for 
property lost in those wars. 

When the President of the Secession Convention declared 
that the " growth of anti- slavery principles at the North 
makes our property no longer safe," you said, Nonsense ! 
the Government that has spent one hundred millions of dol- 
lars on Florida will not now turn upon her and rob her : men 
do not invest money in that way. You understood the trick : 
you saw a convention made up largely of men interested in 
railroads that were furnished almost entirely by Northern 
money, — your own road, running through this county, on 
which rolled elegant cars and the finest locomotives, scarce 
one of them paid for, and all bought in the North j you saw 
men of large commercial business gathered there ; you knew 
they owed the North for their goods, and you said. The North 
that trusts us will not rob us, even if it wish to, because it 
won't pay. And you said, too. How can it be possible that the 
North, which does so much to help us, thinking that the best 
way to help herself, is going to deprive us of our liberties 
when she can make us more serviceable by giving us the 
greatest scope for material development ? 

You looked about to see if you had lost yet any portion of 
your slave property. Could you find that any emissary of the 
United-States Government had ever robbed you of your ne- 
groes ? No : you never dreamed of there being the sHght- 
est danger of it. 

Whom did you fear ? 

The wise among you could not speak : such was the terror 
held over men, that not one of you dared to say a word 
against the iniquitous assemblage at Tallahassee consecrated 
to the work of theft and treason, — two crimes to be sanctified 
by the prayers of a Christian bishop. 

There are men here who saw the wickedness of this thing. 
I'll wager a bale of cotton against a hoe-handle that I can tell 

2 



10 

the opinions of some of my old friends in Nassau County at 
that time. 

You thought, Well, it may be all as they tell us : but whom 
shall we believe ? Shall we believe the Government that has 
till now protected us, and that we have never found false ? 
or shall we believe a herd of politicians, who, so far as we 
have known them, have been continually at work to serve 
themselves ? 

You thought. Are we, the peoijle, to be any better off than 
we have ever been? Shall we not have the same relation to 
the new government that we had to the old? 

Where, then, are loe to be improved ? One thing we do see : 
that where now there is but one government to support, 
there will be two ; there will therefore be a host of new 
offices to fill, new expenses to pay. These places will of 
course be occupied by the men most busy in bringing the 
new order of things about, and who, now that their party is 
fairly beaten, must otherwise lie on the shelf: we shall pay 
the bills. 

It appears, then, you thought that we, the people, are to be 
no better off: our position is to be in no sense changed from 
the present, except for the worse ; for we shall be bound in the 
chains of men who have perjured themselves to make places 
they had lost. 

But they, the politicians, are going to have a good thing of 
it : we are to be the cats'-paws by which those monkeys are 
to pull chestnuts out of the fire ; and they will eat the 
chestnuts. 

These men proceeded at once to deeds of theft and 
fraud. They repudiated every debt owed to Northern men. 
They called it sequestration; i. e., repudiation made easy. 
Railroad stockholders, whose property was owned by Northern 
capitalists, luxuriated a good deal in the smartness by which 
they had defrauded New York of three to four millions of 
dollars : they stole United-States funds in the custom-houses 
and post-offices ; and to-day, after having oppressed the peo- 
ple during all these four years, conscripted your young men, 
forcing them into their armies, leaving your country open 



11 

to raids invited by their wickedness, allowing your wives 
and children to go hungry, — what happens ? 

Why, they jostle each other iiidecently at the post-offices in 
their haste to get off their petitions for amnesty by the first 
mail ! Do they plead for you ? Do we find one of them cry- 
ing to the Government, '' Have mercy on our poor people in 
the country : we led them astray : they are not to blame ; 
we are the guilty ones"? No! before God I say it, — no ! And 
some of the young men who are before me to-day as paroled 
prisoners, without the rights of citizens, but who are nobly 
honest in your desire to be good citizens of the United States, 
are in no manner instructed how to proceed, while those who 
have been your generals have already filed their applications 
for pardon, leaving you to look out for yourselves without one 
word of advice. 

This, after having ac ^omi lished — what? They began by 
complaining that negro property wasn't safe : they were 
going to make it safe ! And they have saved the institution of 
slavery with a vengeance, have they not? Yes: when you 
drop your watch overboard, a Yankee peddler can't steal it 
from you. There must be comfort in that to these distin- 
guished statesmen: the slaves are all safe to-day, — nobody 
will steal a negro. 

Thus you reason, and thus we come to conclude that these 
are the men, my fellow-citizens, who have been whipped : they 
have been properly punished ; but let us not apply the word 
to the people, although the people have suffered so much: it 
was simply in the fortune of war. 

We are all American citizens : we cannot afford to have 
such a word as '' whipped" among us. We must not cultivate 
bitterness on the subject of the war ; we must not talk of 
other wars for Mexico or Canada, that shall seem to unite our 
own people by destroying others, or heal our own wounds by 
opening new. We are simply back again in the Union. Let 
us address ourselves with energy to the development of our 
State and country ; thus we shall become a united people. 

Shall we then have bitterness for those who have misled us? 
No : bitterness for none ; good for all. Forgiveness for re- 
pentance, — that is the law of Christianity. Can it be that you 



12 

will accept the forgiveness of God for yourselves, ■ — that you 
will pray, ^^ Forgive my sins even as I forgive those that sin 
against me/' — and then refuse to forgive these unfortunate men 
who have done you wrong, but who already suffer for it? 

Let us betray no vindictiveness even towards those who 
misled the weak and persecuted loyal men. Remember Saul, 
who, from being the leader of persecution, became the prince 
of Christian apostles. There is no occasion for bad feelings 
even towards them, guilty as they have been. 

The war, instituted by wicked men, has been seized out of 
their hands by the Eternal Controller of the world ; and what 
they meant should be a Revolution for the advancement of 
slavery, white and black, has been turned to the creation of 
glorious liberty. 

It was not the war of a man nor a State ; not the South nor 
yet the North conducted this war ; not Davis with his iron 
hand, nor Lincoln with his tender love for all men : it was 
God's war. As the great Father permitted the death of 
Christ after only three years of ministration, but yet failed not 
to Christianize the world, so in these days the death of our 
President has but inaugurated the establishment of his prin- 
ciples of policy. 

" May these endure, and as his work attest 
The glory of his honest heart and hand : 
The simplest, and the bravest and the best, — 
The Moses and the Cromwell of his land." 

In what I have said I think I have sufficiently indicated the 
spirit in which the United States approaches the people of 
those States that have attempted the subversion of the Gov- 
ernment. 

If you believe any thing I say, you understand that our 
beneficent Government comes to her children with the old 
affection. She wishes these States to return to their alle- 
giance, not as conquered provinces, but as peers of the realm. 

It is true that some men at the North do not quite consent to 
so much favor being shown the unfaithful : they would hold 
these States in the " grasp of war " until the true public policy 
is developed in them. But the Government says, "No : let us 



13 

' be glad ; for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again ; 
and was lost, and is found.' " 

But while the United States comes to us with this sentiment, 
we are not to suppose that we can resume our State govern- 
ment without remodelling our Constitution so as to make it 
homogeneous with the Constitutions of those States that have 
stood by the national authority in this contest, and also with 
the United-States Constitution, amended as it is by the de- 
mands of the age. 

We are not to suppose that men who have paid |3,000,000,- 
000, and laid their best blood on the altar of their country, are 
wihing for the sake of peace to plaster over this horrible gash 
before all the poison has been cleansed out of the wound. 

The people of these States have been taught that Uncle 
Sam was a fool and a coward, whom it was necessary only to 
cajole for whatever was wanted. It is true that for many 
years he has slept with a firebrand and a barrel of gunpowder 
under his bed ; it is true that men have long been at work 
rolling these antagonisms towards each other to blow up the 
old gentleman ; but it is also true that the incendiaries have 
failed to notice a very important habit of our uncle. He slept 
with one eye open. 

Thus it happened, that, when the firebrand and the gun- 
powder were almost in contact. Uncle Sam suddenly jumped 
out of bed ; after a struggle he has kicked the rascals out of 
his house, and thrown the firebrand after them. 

They knock to be re-admitted : they are naked and hungry, 
and Uncle Sam is mercifuL 

They will be re-admitted ; but do you imagine our good old 
uncle is fool enough to let them come in with their old manners, 
and bring their firebrand with them ? 

When you have answered this question correctly, you have 
solved the whole problem of re-organization. 

If a chemist who had never heard of gunpowder were to 
receive a barrel, and be told that it contained such a dangerous 
mixture, that he must be careful how he kept it in his house, 
he would proceed immediately to examine the fine black grains, 
— he would analyze the article, and ascertain its ingredients : 
he would learn that it is made of saltpetre, charcoal, and 



14 

sulphur ; that the charcoal takes fire easily, giving off a cer- 
tain gas, and ignites the sulphur, so increasing the heat as to 
draw another inflammable gas from the saltpetre ; that these 
agents act rapidly on each other, evolving their gases so sud- 
denly as to cause destructive explosion. 

Finding, then, that fire was the one thing brought in contact 
with these black grains that created danger, he would be 
cautious that no fire approached his mysterious barrel. 

Now what would you say of that chemist, if, for the sake of 
fraternity and peace, he permitted a brother who lived with 
him to build a fire in his chimney, and use the barrel of gun- 
powder for a back-log ? 

Yet, my friends, I undertake to say that this was just what 
the United-States Government has been trying to do for sev- 
eral years. A republic is constituted of these ingredients, 
— free thoughts, free speech, free men. Now, when you 
look through all the knowledge of earth, do you find a more 
explosive mixture than that? We call \t freedom. 

What is the most dangerous antagonism to freedom ? Is it 
abolitionism? No: the abolitionists have been pleading for 
free speech and free men for a half century. Abolitionism 
almost means freedom. I can't find the most dangerous an- 
tagonism to freedom in any of the forms of religion among our 
citizens. I can't even find it in any Northern State ; because 
in all those States 3^ou may think and say just what you please 
concerning public politics, and there, all men are free. 

But there have been certain States in w^hich a man could ' 
not say what he pleased, no matter how courteously he spoke, 
nor how earnest his convictions, nor what his social position, 
nor what his religious character. There were certain States 
in which free discussions were not allowed. 

Now this Avas a condition of things in antagonism to free- 
dom ; was it not, my friends ? If, then, we can ascertain 
whether there existed a peculiarity in those States, — a pecu- 
liarity common to all of them, and that existed nowhere else, 
only in those States, — we shall say that such peculiarity was 
the singular and especial antagonism of freedom. 

It so happens that we do discover a political feature in 
those very States where free discussion was not allowed ; and 



15 

this political feature existed only in those States, and was the 
same in all. 

What was that dangerous antagonism to freedom ? 

I thank God, who governs the world in his OAvn way, that 
to-day no language applicable to the American system con- 
tains the word, — the name of that thing: it is passed away ; 
we know it only as of a time gone by. When it existed 
among us we called it, — let me say it in a whisper, lest the 
angels of light hear it and shudder, — we called it slavery. 

Here is the whole problem workecl' out. Slavery was the 
firebrand that, almost coming in contact with national freedom, 
brought Uncle Sam to his feet. Do you blame him for throw- 
ing that firebrand out of the window, and kicking the incen- 
diaries out of his house ? 

We understand, then, without further discussion, that certain 
things are inevitable. 

One is, that as these naughty fellows are members of Uncle 
Sam's family, and he can't be happy without them, he will 
bring them back into the house. 

Another is, that the firebrand will not be brought back : it 
will not re-enter in any shape. These incendiaries will be 
searched : if they have even flint and steel, or matches, in 
their pockets, they cannot come in. 

They will not be re-arlmitted until they come divested of 
every article inimical to that grand explosive mixture of free 
thought, free speech, and free men. 

It is to this point, my fellow-citizens, that I have desired to 
lead you. 

I had a double duty to perform ; my duty before you, the 
Republic, and my God, to speak the truth; my duty to you and 
our suffering country, to so speak the truth, that I should not 
needlessly re-open any wound. 

My heart tells me that I have tried to be as gentle as I 
could, and be truthful. 

And noAv I proceed to develop the proposition I have laid 
down, by going a little more into particulars. 

'I need not make any attempt to persuade you that our re- 
organization is a matter of great importance to our material 
prosperity. Every man of us feels that without a State gov- 



16 

ernment we are in a bad way. We see that enterprises of all 
sorts, public and private, are paralyzed: there is no protection 
to the orderly citizen against the crimes of vagabond offend- 
ers ; there is no police-system ; we cannot buy and sell a piece 
of property, and be assured that we are conveying or receiv- 
ing a good title. 

We all agree upon one thing, which is^ that we want to re- 
establish a State government as soon as possible. 

How is it to be done ? 

I answer generally, as before, by the adoption of a constitu- 
tion homogeneous with those of the States now in the Union. 

I am not giving you my opinions : I am giving you truth as 
exhibited by the proclamations of the President. 

Now, a constitution illustrates the principles of the elected, 
for which the electors are responsible. I take care to separate 
these two classes because we find out, occasionally, that their 
principles are not alike. I say, then, the constitution illustrates 
the principles of the elected, but the electors endure the re- 
sults, and are responsible for them to the world. 

Now, the people of the United States intend to give us an 
opportunity to make a new constitution ; and knowing as they 
do, that in these States there are some men whose hearts are 
not in love with the Union, but rankle in bitterness, — men 
who, if they dared, would introduce into the new constitution 
principles that would leave old issues open, and reflecting as 
they do on all the money that has been spent, as well as the 
terrible ocean of blood that has covered the land because of 
these old issues, — I say, the people of the United States, know- 
ing these things, having these and much else to the same pur- 
pose in view, are determined to so regulate the settlement of 
matters that, while citizens of the State shall be left to make 
tlicir own constitution, it shall bo done by citizens who are of 
undoubted loyalty to the Union ; men who are willing that 
every thing else in politics shall be second to this grand idea, 
— a perfect union of all these States. 

To accomplish this object, the President has issued several 
proclamations ; one pronouncing amnesty, and others where 
he has appointed provisional governors of various States, 
which, like us, await re-organization. 



n 

By consulting those proclamations, you will learn, that, in 
granting amnesty to the mass of those who have been in arms 
against the Government, the President makes fourteen ex- 
ceptions, — there are fourteen classes of persons in the State, 
who are not forgiven in the general pardon : all citizens who 
are not named in one of those fourteen classes will constitute 
the body politic of the State, in good favor with the United- 
States Government, and may proceed, when a provisional 
governor comes among us, to re-organize the State. I briefly 
name those fourteen classes. 

I. Civil officers and agents of the Richmond Government, 
whether domestic or foreign. 

II. United-States judges, who resigned in favor of treason. 

III. Military officers of the Rebellion above the rank of 
colonel in the army, or lieutenant in the navy. 

IV. Members of the United-States Congress who resigned 
in favor of treason. 

y. Officers of the United-States army who resigned in favor 
of treason. 

YI. Those miscreants who have unlawfuly abused Union 
prisoners of war. 

And here I wish to pause a moment to say, that, if any one 
circumstance raises the State of Florida above the position of 
some of her neighbors before the world, it is this fact, that 
your military authorities never inflicted cruelties upon de- 
fenceless prisoners in their hands ; on the contrary, their treat- 
ment was humane and kind Christian treatment. And I ought 
to add, in justice to our neighbors of Georgia, that I know of 
large contributions of fresh beef and mutton being taken to 
Andersonville by the farmers of the State for distribution 
among those suffering men ; contributions that were seized by 
officers having them in charge, to the disappointment of kind- 
hearted Georgians, who had hoped to relieve suff'ering. 

Let them be assured that in the North, when Georgia is 
remembered, this Christian benevolence will be put to her 
credit. 

Let all men know that we prefer remembering the kind acts, 
to laying up in our hearts the bitterness, of the past. 

To resume : — 



18 

VII. Men who left the country to avoid opposing the Ee- 
belKon. 

VIII. Graduates of West Point who served in the armies 
of treason. 

IX. Rebel governors of States. 

X. Citizens who left the United-States lines, and went Jnto 
the Rebel lines to aid treason. 

XL Privateers and the Canada raiders. 

XII. Prisoners of war and of State on parole or in confine- 
ment. 

XIII. Persons who have voluntarily given aid to the Re- 
bellion in any way, and whose taxable property is over $20,000. 

XIV. Persons who have violated an oath of allegiance to 
the United-States Government. 

Now any man who does not come under one of these excep- 
tions will be entitled to vote, unless it appear that he has in 
some other way been a disloyal man whom it would be unsafe 
to trust. 

And the President assures us that he will consider as 
liberally as possible the appHcations for pardon that may be 
made by those men who are accounted unfit to be forgiven in 
the terms of a general amnesty. 

But, before a citizen is permitted to vote, he is called to sub- 
scribe to a certain oath, which, among other obhgations, binds 
him to " support all the laws and proclamations that have been 
made during the war with reference to the emancipation of 
slaves." 

This, then, is inevitable, that we must organize under a free 
State constitution : we accept it, if for no other reason, because 
it is inevitable. 

Let us, my friends, address ourselves to the fact, and deter- 
mine that we will not be broken down by it : let us not 
spend time in grumbhng over what cannot be helped, but go 
to work, encourage the emigration of laborers to our beautiful 
State, and hire men to raise crops, to carry on arts and manu- 
factures. 

We have the land, we have the materials. 

Shall we complain, that negroes, being free, put on the airs 
of free men ? Is it worth while to spend much time in vexa- 



19 

tion because negroes act just as you and I would act if we 
were in their situation ? You have only to establish one fact 
among them just as it exists among yourselves, which is, that 
a man who would live must pay the world for his living. 

It will require time to do this • but I am satisfied that you 
will accomplish it. 

From my experience with that class of people during the 
last three years, I am free to say, that, when they once learn 
that work is necessary if they wish to live, they become in- 
dustrious and excellent laborers. It required some time to 
teach this ; but I have finally succeeded, so far as the work I 
have in charge is concerned. 

If my negro men absented themselves from the work a day, 
for which a ration had been issued from my commissariat, 
I charged them with the price of that ration when I settled 
with them at the end of the month. They soon learned that 
the ration was not a gratuity, but a part of their wages to be 
paid for work. 

The result was, that, after this lesson was learned, they be- 
came more constant in duty : if they had previously worked 
eight or ten days in a month, they now made the full twenty- 
six. 

Punctuality was another lesson to be taught. If a man 
failed to make his appearance while the roll was being called, 
he was docked for a quarter of a day. It was necessary to be 
absolute in this thing : they thought it a great hardship that 
when they were only five minutes late they could not go to 
work immediately, but must wait till the end of the first 
quarter. However, they learned finally to be punctual. 

In the same way certain old notions about Saturday after- 
noon had to be met : the negroes found, at last, that it paid to 
work all the time.. 

Now I want to name one other fact that has done much 
towards producing this condition of things on my work, and 
bringing the freedmen into industrious habits, and making 
them profitable to me as well as to themselves. It is this : 
Those people learned, after a tiaie, that, if I did certain things 
to the negroes that forced them to work more steadily than 
had been their custom, I did the very same things by the 



20 

white laborers. They observed what was going on: they 
said, '^ It's mighty hard on ns ; but he serves all alike." 

The result is, that, if you consult one of my overseers or 
foremen, he will tell you that a force of negroes at Fort Clinch 
is worth more than any body of white laborers that I have 
ever had on the work. 

And I will say for the negroes on this coast that, although 
I have been so constantly associated with them for the last 
four years, I have in all that time seen only four of them in a 
state of drunkenness ; just one a year. I can't say as much 
for any class of white people I have ever known in any part 
of the country or in any walk of life. 

Now, my friends, my object in saying what I do on this sub- 
ject is to induce you to lay aside some of your prejudices in 
relation to this matter, and devote yourselves to procuring 
the best results out of your laborers, instead of fretting be- 
cause " niggers put on airs." 

You may depend that if you simply study the problem to 
see how you shall make labor pay you the best results, you 
will soon find yourselves forgetti;Bg about color : you will be 
no more jealous of these poor creatures than of any other 
laborer. 

One of my white laborers, a native of this county, wanting 
higher wages, complained that he didn't receive as much as a 
" nigger." 

" That's very true," I said ; " but you are not worth as 
much." 

'^ Well," he replied, " I think a white man ought to be worth 
as much as a nigger any time." 

I was forced to say that I reckon a man's value to me as a 
laborer by the amount of work he is able to accomplish ; that 
I do not pay a premium on color : I pay for work. 

Now, won't you agree with me in this proposition ? Am I 
not correct ? And do you not feel that much of the trouble 
occurring among the blacks proceeds in no small degree from 
our own impatience under the changes that have occurred in 
their relations to us ? 

Let us be honest with ourselves and with them. They are 
among us : they make the labor of the country ; it so happens 



21 

that, in the providence of God, we have to accept their pres- 
ence as one of the inevitables. 

Will it not be somewhat unreasonable in ns — say even a 
little cowardly — if we permit ourselves to be vexed with 
them because they have been freed ? I have no doubt you 
will agree with me on this subject ; that you will approach the 
whole matter with the dignity becoming your manhood. 

I acknowledge that some mistakes have been made by 
Northern men, who have come among us utterly ignorant of 
our institutions, and of. the characteristics peculiar to the race 
in question. I know that, in their zeal to fill the black with a' 
proper sense of his new condition, they have seemed to forget 
that he is a responsible being like all other men ; that he re- 
quires the same discipline of law and manners. They appear 
only to remember that he has been a slave, and is now free, 
and ought to be doing something to spite his old owner ; they 
give him false impressions of life ; they fill him with a self- 
appreciation before they have taught him to avoid absurd- 
ities. The result is to the prejudice of good order, and the 
negro suffers because his zealous friend is a fool. 

It was no fault of the negro : he has been misled by med- 
dlesome men ; be patient with him. If you are, you will find 
him much more likely to trust you, whom he has known favor- 
ably all his life, than to give his friendship to Northern men^ 
who preach a good deal in his favor, but have no work to 
put money in his pocket. 

There is one subject before the country at this time on 
which I want to say a single word. 

This subject is called by several fine-sounding names. Some 
designate it " universal suffrage ; " others, again, have styled 
it, even more unfairly, " manhood suffrage." These words 
mean just one thing, and there is only one proper way of 
putting it ; any attempt to varnish it over with this poetry 
appears to me frivolous and dishonest. 

When men talk of " universal suffrage " and " manhood suf- 
frage," they mean negro suffrage, but haven't the manliness to 
say so. 

It is not worth our while to discuss the matter because, 
although some over-zealous and impracticable men are agi- 



22 

tating the subject in various parts of the land, the President 
does not countenance the attempt to force it upon us. He is 
determined to let the loyal citizens of this State settle the 
matter for themselves. 

The only reply to be made to these men is, If you like 
negro suffrage so well, why don't you try it at hoilie ? If 
negro suffrage is a good thing in Florida, it must be good in 
Maine. Try it first 3^ourselves, then advise us of the result. 

Some of the newspapers of NeAv-York city talk of univer- 
sal suffrage as if it existed in that State. From their tone 
one might infer that negro suffrage has received a fair trial, 
and they are giving us the benefit of their experience. 

Such, however, is not the fact. 

When the question was submitted to the people of New 
York, they refused to allow negroes to vote ; and so it remains 
to this day, except that a few very specially favored individu- 
als, who among other qualifications possess a certain amount 
of real estate, are permitted this right. 

The qualifications I refer to are demanded only of negroes. 
This is the " manhood suffrage " of New York. 

Even if the discriminations against that class were less than 
they are, there yet would exist the fact that the people on 
whom is inflicted the mass of emigration from Europe, — to de- 
scribe whom it would require the dialect of BlackwelPs Island, 
— make it more difficult for free negroes to vote than for that 
imported offal of the monarchies. Every intelligent citizen 
knows, that, even when the laws permit negro suffrage, the 
popular prejudice against these people is so strong that they 
have rarely availed themselves of the privilege. 

I think it likely that in these days, in Massachusetts, the 
negro may walk fearlessly to the polls in certain precincts, and 
cast his ballot. If he can do so, it is a new thing ; but opinions 
travel rapidly in New England, and I have been four years in 
the army without absence : I have therefore had no opportunity 
to observe the case. 

I do not propose to make any argument on this subject. I 
take it, all are agreed on certain points ; one of which is, that 
the black laborer must be protected in all his proper rights ; 



23 

but none have yet regarded the elective franchise to be one 
of those rights : what it may become, we will not now say. 

While I am on this subject of citizenship, I wish to make a 
suggestion that I hope may be of use to us. 

It is very evident that in the fortunes of war the political 
control of the State passes out of the hands of those who have 
heretofore managed our affairs, into the hands of the people : 
will the people retain that power which is now to be given 
them by the United-States Government, and wield it for their 
own good ? or will it shortly revert to the same men who have 
been our masters in times past ? 

I call them " our masters J^ for when I reflect that such a 
respectable, worthy, and thoroughly upright man as Colonel 
Tracy was defeated in this county by a drunken lawyer who 
had whiskey to dispense, and who, to my personal knowledge, 
bought votes by the gift of a twenty-five-cent chip hat, or a 
pair of stogy shoes, I have no other name to apply to their 
relation to the people. 

Will they recover their old places ? 

That depends very much on ourselves ; and I know of but 
one protection against their management, — it is to enlighten 
and educate the people. 

You will soon have it in your power to provide for this. 

You distribute lands without stint to speculators : the credit 
of your State is this day pledged to millions of dollars' worth 
of bonds, which have made the capital of private companies ; 
all this, to be sure, for the good of the State, and for your 
benefit as well as theirs. 

But what have we done towards the education of the people? 
Can we not see that these old politicians find it to their in- 
terest to keep the people in ignorance ? Suppose every man 
in this county could have been a general reader ! do you 
believe the unprincipled men of the State could have bam- 
boozled the people so successfully as they have in times past? 

Why, my friends, let us dwell upon one single fact : the rolls 
of Lee and Johnson's armies, at the time of their surrender, 
show that only one man in five was able to write his name ! 
This is an unpleasant truth, I know ; but, when a man is 



\ 



24 

wounded; you have got to look right straight at the unsightly 
sore in order to dress it and cure the sufferer. 

Shall this condition of things last? Shall we not, by a con- 
stitutional provision, make some arrangement for the enlight- 
enment of the people, the education of the children ? I tell 
you it will be disgraceful to us if we allow the chance to go 
by, that now offers for doing something for ourselves and our 
children. 

Shall we not, then, proceed to inaugurate as eJBficient a school 
system as our scattered population will permit, and so draft 
our new constitution as to inchide arrangements necessary for 
educating our own teachers as well? 

Fellow-citizens, I have said enough to convey to your minds 
all that you require to know, at this juncture, of the intentions 
of the Government. As to what they will do, of course I 
cannot predict, and I have no authority to declare any thing 
officially. 

But I may properly say that, in my judgment, the course 
pursued with Florida will be precisely the same as with all the 
rest. 

This State alone remains without a provisional governor. 
I know that influences are at work to prevent such appoint- 
ment, — that a military governor has been suggested; but you 
need have no apprehension upon that point. A military governor 
will not be appointed : the very same eftbrts have been made 
elswhere, and have failed. A provisional governor will be 
appointed by the President : he will be a good man ; you may 
rely on that : he will be a citizen of the State, and a man de- 
voted to the cause of the people, having an eye single to the 
well-being of Florida as a member of the Union. 

After he is appointed, he will make himself acquainted with 
the people, their character for loyalty, their requirements. 

He will shortly appoint justices of the peace, and he will call 
on you to select members for a convention that is to make for 
us a new constitution. 

Under that constitution we shall elect a State Legislature, 
and we shall send our members to Congress, and then Florida, 
thank G-od, will be returned again to the arms of our dear old 
mother, — the Union ! 



25 

Were I to advise, I should say that it is not necessary to 
hold large meetings until such a governor is appointed ; but I 
think it desirable that you canvass your neighborhoods, and 
know how men stand, if you wish to be safe under the re- 
organization ; moreover, every thing done now towards repro- 
ducing proper feeling will be just so much work saved when 
a governor takes control. 

I hope you are not tired out, and that I have been able to 
say some words that will be of benefit to you. I thank you 
for your patient listening, and I pray God to hasten the time 
when we shall be once more living in brotherhood : be assured, 
my fellow-citizens, that from me you will never receive other 
than the most fraternal attention, as I have towards you all the 
kindest regard. 



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